Gregg Doyel has made a bit of a side job of smacking around Duke and Coach K lately, basically over the fact that Coach K wanted nothing to do with his unauthorized biography (given what Doyel's shown since that time, who the hell could blame him?)Now, though, he says he'll let it go if the U.S. wins gold. To which we can only say: who gives a rat's behind what Doyel thinks about anything? We've long since given up on him as a clown, as the Mr. Blackwell of sportswriters, full of glee when he gets to unleash an insult, but basically saying nothing of substance, just sneering at everyone. As far as we can tell, he doesn't think of anyone as his equal (notice the dig at Kansas in this article - the state, not the school.
Here's how bad Doyel has gotten: we were thinking it'd be fun to lock him in a room with Billy Packer for, well, as long as possible, in a sort of Sartre-inspired hell, but the truth is, as annoying as Billy Packer can be at times, we'd much, much rather put up with his pomposity than Doyel's incessant bitching.
We'd pick the lock to get him out of there. Howard Cosell? Maybe. Steven Smith? Yeah, okay, he can be annoying, but we'd spring him. Stuart Scott? He's a bit of a dufus, but we'd let him out, too. No one should have to define hell as being trapped with Gregg Doyel.
Doyel has let himself become a bitter man, and his writing has really gotten lame.
The good news? It's really rare when anyone comes up to us and says, wow, you just have to read what Gregg Doyel wrote! People recognize him for what he is, which is, more or less, a shrill, yappy little Pomeranian who barks louder to get attention. Frankly, we're amazed he's even willing to concede it's a good thing if a Coach-K team wins gold.
Oh, yeah - our apologies for insulting the Pomeranian community.